Letters to the Editor

Sesame Street

Great indignation is made of Candidate Romney's choice to end some taxpayer subsidies including popular TV program "Sesame Street". Sesame Street royalties include: books, toys, costumes, watches, a hotel theme park, etc. Program producer, Sesame Workshop paid 142 employees more than $100,000 in 2010 with the top 21 averaging more than $400,000.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting airs Sesame Street. In 2010 Corporation for Public Broadcasting took in nearly $460 Million ($459,877,360). Taxpayers funded 97.61 percent ($448,877,360). Viewers contributed 2.39 percent ($11 Million). Both Sesame Workshop and Corporation for Public Broadcasting claim 501(c)(3) "non-profit" status with IRS. Creative works are copyrighted. Royalties, permission money, is paid to the creator (or creator's estate) to use that work. Eventually copyrights run out and the works enter "public domain" allowing anyone to use them freely. A theater director suggested adding extra copyright years benefiting the National Endowment for Arts. IE dead artist royalties would support current artists, releasing taxpayer's burden. Ending tax support of National Endowment for Arts would save $126 Million in one year, $678 Million in five years.

Sesame Workshop recently received $1,067,532 "stimulus" grant---creating 1.47 jobs. Spending borrowed tax money 'stimulating" a star example of successful business is obscenely wrong when each American family's "share" of national debt increased 50 percent since 2009.